U.S. businesses need to exit Russia’s ally China, too

Exclusive: Roger Simmermaker warns of ‘rock solid’ relationship between aggressors

If ever there was a case for U.S.-based businesses to exit China, the flurry of many of them refusing to do business with Russia provides the best reasoning yet. The logic is, of course, exiting Russia is the right thing to do, regardless of profit motives.

China has extended its hand to aid Russia despite its reprehensible actions by announcing plans to construct a natural-gas pipeline from Russia to China through Mongolia. On March 7, China made it very clear that it would not condemn Russia’s attack on Ukraine and instead boasted of its “rock solid” relationship with Russia.

Chinese president Xi Jinping’s motives are now clear, and we should treat his communist country the same as we are now treating his apparent ally, Russia, by exiting our business dealings there. Fortunately, the departure of U.S.-based companies from Russia has already started.
On February 28, Visa and MasterCard, which handle a total of 90% of all credit and debit card payments outside of China, announced that they were blocking several banks in Russia from their payment networks.

American Express decided to block the sanctioned banks in Russia.

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